Long before I ever pressed the shutter of a camera, I was a teacher, coach, and mentor to thousands of high school students in Philadelphia. After attending college as a history and education major, I began my career as a high school history teacher in 1999 and worked in just about every capacity of a school! Teacher, History Department Chair, Coach, Teaching Coach, Yearbook Advisor, Club Moderator, Dean of Students, Director of Student Affairs, etc. I also developed, implemented, and taught two photography programs. But my favorite role has always been helping students make progress on their journeys.
“the reason I pulled the trigger on [learning with chuck] is not only because Chuck is an experienced, accomplished photographer, but also because he is an experienced, accomplished TEACHER.”
Along the way, I picked up photography as a hobby to document my growing family. Armed with a Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel that my wife bought me, I went into the world and created a lot of exceptionally bad imagery! But I loved it like no other hobby and walked the fine line between being obsessed and being passionate. I was blissfully aimless for quite some time until I discovered documentary photography in 2007. It was Annie Leibovitz’s A Photographer’s Life that showed me what family photography can look like. Since then, I have driven relentlessly in pursuit of an honest view of my family’s daily life inspired by great documentary photographers.
I have been photographing my daily family life on a regular basis since 2004! My passion for authentic family storytelling inspired me to create the very first online resource for documentary family photography in 2009: The Family Photojournalist. My work in this genre has earned international awards and publication by Leica Camera. Professionally, I have photographed 300+ weddings over 11 years and was ranked in the top six of the world of the prestigious Wedding Photojournalist Association. My professional portfolio can be seen here: Professional Portfolio and my personal portfolio here: Personal Work.
“He builds your confidence with tangible evidence that you yourself create and then…he will remind you to have fun. And you will.”
After 19 years in secondary education, I left formal education to pursue photographic endeavors. Since then, I have written and taught curriculum for Creating Deeper Documentary Images and a year long mentorship titled DEPTH + GROWTH. This allows me to return to my favorite role as an educator: helping students make progress on their journey.
“…for the first time since I picked up a camera I feel powerful and creative and have fun while photographing.”
ABOUT CLOSING THE GAP
CLOSING THE GAP is a year long program structured largely on what I've discovered about how we learn best in my twenty years as an educator. It's really rather simple! We learn best in small, intimate settings where we are able to truly connect with our instructors, classmates, the content, ourselves. With that in mind, there will only be fifteen spots available for this program so that I can fully dedicate to you and your goals. This sort of setting really allows students to dive deep to achieve true growth.
The philosophy of CLOSING THE GAP is inspired by Ira Glass' "The Gap". He once said in an interview:
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."
Ira Glass' words resonated with me years ago when I first heard them. I remember thinking "this is exactly it!" as I was making work that I just wasn't satisfied with...so I started to do the work...a lot of it...a lot of really bad work. But as the days turned into months and the months turned into years, I was absolutely closing the gap between what my images looked like and what I wanted them to look like! I have taken and applied that same philosophy and applied it to course offerings and much to my delight, my students have began to close the gap!